The drugmaker will release a portion of its provision for the tax matter in the first quarter of 2011, resulting in gain of around $500m in the three-month period.

The settlement follows an earlier agreement with the British tax authorities on transfer pricing in February 2010, which also resulted in payments that were less than had been provided for, resulting in increased 2010 earnings.

Transfer pricing concerns the price at which one unit of a group sells goods or services to another unit of the same group.